


I Go With You

by HonestLackey



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, POV Arya Stark, POV Gendry, Really Long Walk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-20 11:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12431961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestLackey/pseuds/HonestLackey
Summary: When Gendry doesn't get captured at the village near the God's Eye they continue to travel North.





	1. Arya 1 - God's Eye Village

_“She’s no use,” Gendry repeated stubbornly. “Her and Hot Pie and Lommy, they’re slowing us down, they’re going to get us killed. You’re the only one of the bunch who’s good for anything. Even if you are a girl.”_

_Arya froze in her steps. “I’m not a girl!”_

_“Yes you are. Do you think I’m as stupid as they are?”_

_“No, you’re stupider. The Night’s Watch doesn’t take girls, everyone knows that.”_

_“That’s true. I don’t know why Yoren brought you, but he must have had some reason. You’re still a girl.”_

_“I am not!”_

_“Then pull your cock out and take a piss. Go on.”_

_“I don’t need to take a piss. If I wanted to I could.”_

_“Liar. You can’t take out your cock because you don’t have one. I never noticed when there were thirty of us, but you always go off into the woods to make water. You don’t see Hot Pie doing that, nor me neither. If you’re not a girl, you must be some eunuch.”_

_“You’re the eunuch.”_

_“You know I’m not.” Gendry smiled_

_“You want me to take out my cock and prove it? I don’t have anything to hide.”_

_“Yes you do,” Arya blurted, desperate to escape the subject of the cock she didn’t have. “Those gold cloaks were after you in the inn, and you won’t tell us why.”_

_“I wish I knew. I think Yoren knew, but he never told me. Why did you think they were after you, though?”_

_Arya bit her lip. She remember why Yoren had said, the day he hacked off her hair. ‘This lot, half o’ them would turn you over to the queen quick as spit for a pardon and maybe a few silvers. The other half’d do the same, only they’d rape you first.’. Only Gendry was different, the queen wanted him too._

Arya 4 - A Clash of Kings, Chapter 14

_\--_

Arya glared at him for a moment longer before her gaze dropped to the tree roots at her feet. She had no way to convince him of what wasn’t in her pants and she didn’t make a particularly convincing eunuch. She half thought to draw Needle and run him though with the pointed little blade, she was fast enough and Gendry was horrifically slow. She was pretty sure she could do it, just like she’d done with the stable boy and Gendry would be just as shocked as the boy had been too. Hot Pie and Lommy would believe her if she lied and said Gendry had been killed or captured in the village. Lommy too preoccupied with dying and Hot Pie didn’t have much more in his head beyond ‘yielding’ and how to bake bread – _“Shut up would you, ain’t doing nothing more than making us hungrier.”_ Arya had told when he’d spoken of rye bread previous night and Gendry had shot her a thankful look as his stomach grumbled unpleasantly. She couldn’t kill Gendry, though, he was the only one of the group that was halfway useful and even she realized she wouldn’t survive out here alone. _The lone wolf dies but the pack survives_. She’d have to trust him, she didn’t like that idea but the truth was all that she’d had left.

 

“You can’t tell Lommy or Hot Pie.” they’d turn her over just like Yoren had said but they wouldn’t need silver or pardons they’d do it for hot meal and the chance to sleep indoors again.

 

“I won’t. They won’t know, not from me.” Gendry promised easily and she didn’t need Syrio’s way of seeing to know he wouldn’t tell, Gendry was an honest sort.

 

“It’s Arya. My name,” she clarifies, somehow feeling it’s necessary to do so, “its Arya not Arry or Lumpyhead or nothing else.” she spoke, her words becoming a tangle in her throat that she couldn’t really spit out. Gendry still hasn’t clued in and Arya guesses that a boy from Flea’s Bottom doesn’t know much about northern and southern names, nor has he been taught the names of lord’s children the way she was. “Arya of House Stark.” that does it, Gendry’s blue eyes go wide in recognition and his mouth pulls open slightly.

 

“Of House Stark?” Gendry mumbles, as if not really believing it, “The Hand of the King was named Stark. The traitor.”

 

“He wasn’t a traitor.” she spits back, “My father was _never_ a traitor.” She can’t really stop herself. Gendry’s eyes only widen further at the confirmation.

 

“That’s why you thought they were after you.” he nods, piecing it together, “That’s why you were traveling as a boy, the Queen would be after you.”

 

“Yoren was taking me to Winterfell, not the Wall.” Arya agrees, “He was taking me home.” there’s the familiar clench in her chest at the thought, home with Mother, Robb, Bran and baby Rickon it’s all that she wants.

 

“You’ll be a highborn then.” Gendry manages to bite out, “A lady.” Arya looks at Gendry for a heartbeat, disbelieving and then looks down at herself; she doesn’t think she can be a lady the way she is now. Her clothes are little more than rags and she’s not even got shoes anymore just calloused feet with soles like leather. _Ladies don’t kill sable boys either_ , she reminds herself, _or fight gold cloaks in holdfasts_.

 

“I’m no lady.” she bites out.

 

“You are. A lord’s daughter with a lady mother.” Gendry reasons, “You lived in a castle!” He emphasizes and then his expression changes, going almost scared. “All that about cocks,” he groans, “I’ve been pissing in front of you. You’re a lady. My apologies, m’lady.”

 

“Don’t call me that!” she hisses, taking a deadly step towards him to get into his space but not really sure she’d do anything more.

 

“M’lady?” he questions, “I know my courtesies, m’lady. I’m ‘sposed’to bend the knee and not talk unless spoken too, and call you m’lady.” Arya just rolled her eyes.

 

“You keep calling me m’lady even Hot Pie will figure it out and then I’ll be truly fucked.” she complains, she knows she shouldn’t use words like that and that Septa Mordane would have had her mouth washed with soap but the Septa isn’t around anymore and it’s not like Gendry hasn’t said it before. Gendry’s eyes go wide all the same but a smile curls across his face.

 

“What kind of lady are you?” he huffs out the question but Arya can tell he’s on the verge of laughter and she growls and shoves him with both hands. He’s much bigger than her and he shouldn’t fall but his big, oafish feet tangle in the roots and he trips back with a thump.

 

“This kind.” she hisses and Arya kicks him, it mustn’t be very hard because he just keeps laughing.

 

“You sure you’re a lord’s daughter?” he laughs, still on the ground.

 

“Keep laughing.” she concedes, “I’m going to check out the village.” she spins but is grabbed by Gendry’s larger hand, wrapping around her wrist easily. He’s managed to get himself upright and towers over her. Her words have sobered him and there’s no more laughter in his face.

 

Concern clouds his eyes and he doesn’t let go, “We need to be careful,” he implores and Arya rolls her eyes again.

 

“I _am_ being careful. That’s why you’re staying behind.” she grins back and shakes his hand free of her wrist, he lets her go but crowds his way into her space. He’s so much larger than her which is what makes him such a horrible sneak, Syrio was small and so was she, you didn’t need to be big.

 

“No. Not alone.”

 

“’Course I am.” she challenges, “You’re hopeless at sneaking, you’d just get us caught. Both of us, which wouldn’t be very careful.”

 

“Arya.” he growls, and she wonders if she should feel angry about a lowborn bastard using her first name so casually and without titles. Sansa would be horrified and Arya decides that she likes it just because of that.

 

“If I get in trouble, I’ll –“

 

Gendry cuts her off, “Bark like a dog.” Finishing for her but she had to hide the laugh, that might work in the forest but in a village it was as useless.

 

“No, stupid, I’ll say ‘help’.” _I won’t need it anyways_ , Arya tells herself turning for the village on silent feet, _I was sneaky enough to get out of the Red Keep and I’ll be sneaky enough to get in and out of the village unscathed_. _Swift as a deer,_ she reminds herself but the voice in her head sounded eerily like Syrio Forel’s and she couldn’t decide if that bothered her anymore, _quiet as a shadow._ She wasn’t cocky or proud, Syrio had told her that an arrogance is the death of a Water Dancer. Her bare feet are quiet over the ground and she keeps her eyes open for roots or sticks that would trip her up or make a sound when broken. Bulls aren’t sneaky but wolves are and she was a wolf not a bull.

 

She looked back at Gendry, whose face was pained but he’d slunk to the last tree of the forest and lowered himself to the ground, his soiled clothing matching the color of the dirt. _Probably thinks he shouldn’t be letting m’lady go off stealing food. Too bad_ , Arya thought, _if he wants food in his belly he’ll let me go_. She didn’t look back after that, continuing towards the village and the stench that came with it.

 

It was a rotten smell; viler than the stench of an animal and one she’d come to associated with the bodies of dead men. She didn’t need her eyes to confirm what she knew but before long she came across the first body. She had to squeeze through a hedge to get into the village and when she’d done that she’d come face to face with that of a dead man. She didn’t retch as she wanted to but for a moment she couldn’t move, not even exhale a breath. _Fear cuts deeper than swords_. Arya shook herself, dead mean couldn’t hurt her but she turned away in disgust, the image already burned into her mind. Crows had picked out his eyes most likely and his throat was open to the bone. He stunk most off all, Arya wrinkled her nose, stomach bloated with gasses and his skin a mottled grey and red. _It’s what you’ll look like if they catch you,_ she thought before thinking again, _but they won’t catch you. Calm like still water_ , Syrio’s voice reminded and Arya smoothed her face and forced herself to turn back to the body. They wanted her to be scared but it wouldn’t work anymore, she wasn’t a scared little girl, _fear cuts deeper than swords_. She looked closer, opening her eyes to see the way Syrio taught her, they’d stripped him naked which meant he was no use to Arya, just a dead man hanging from a chain. Then she forced herself to look at the next body, another man, stripped as well; _fear cuts deeper than swords._ The next was the same and the next after but the fifth was a woman, at least Arya thought she might have been a woman. _Women and men are killed all the same,_ Arya reminded herself, _except the woman are raped first_ , another part of her brain informed her. She tucked the knowledge away and continued.

 

She was in the truth of the village now, a street of empty houses with roofs thatched in straw and mud. Common houses, like the ones in Winter Town but without thicker walls to protect from the harsh winter winds in North. She came to the first house and peered around the door, careful to make sure the house was empty, before she entered. Whoever had occupied the house had either left in a hurry or had been forced out, benches knocked back and the table barely standing on its three legs. It had been stripped clean like the hanged town folk but not nearly as useless as the naked men had been. There was a shattered pot on the floor and oats had spilled across the ground but Arya didn’t mind much and scooped the oats and dirt into a scrap of cloth that had been left behind and tied it off. She continued in this fashion for the next few houses, taking the two on the left before returning to the others on the right, until the sun had nearly set, she’d not seen a single man alive but the large storehouse with the slate roof had smoke coming from it. She had a handful of supplies now, beans, oats and small things that had been forgotten as well as a little tin pot to stash her stolen things in, she’d even found a little skin of what smelled like mead but more potent than she'd ever drunk and thought it something that could be given to Lommy to quiet him a little. Arya looked to the forest and then darted her eyes to the next house in the row, it was growing dark and she ought to get Gendry and return to Lommy and Hot Pie but one more house wouldn’t hurt. It was nicer than the others, two floors and a good roof, probably belonged to a skilled tradesman or knight, _there’s probably something worthwhile in it_.

 

The door is closed but its lock has been destroyed and it’s easy to push open. The house wrecked worse than the others and Arya spies an old blood pool that smells of rot and iron. Her imiganiation plays out a fight in her head between whoever had been in the home, a family cut down by butches and strung up in the streets. _Fear cuts deeper than swords._ Still, the house is stocked better than the rest, the destruction covering up it's content and Arya is quick to find what is left. A few slices of salt beef will be a treat, oatcakes that are stale but won’t be complained about and a block of hard cheese as big as her fist that she shoves into her smallclothes instead of the pot, deciding she’ll share it with Gendry alone. There’s a pot on a high shelf and Arya thinks it might be honey but it’s out of reach, she thinks about leaving it and bringing Gendry back to help get it but she pushes away the thought and looks for the little wooden stool that resting on it’s side by the table. All the furniture in the house has been damaged and the stool is no different, one of its legs has a crack running the length of it but it stands sturdy when Arya places it under the shelf. It reminds her of Bran who was always climbing and how he'd scaled the high shelves in the kitchens with Arya on lookout but she'd done a poor job and they'd been caught by the cooks. It was a mistake she realized quickly, both getting distracted by thoughts of her family and climbing on a rickety wooden stool, _you’ll end the same as Bran_. The stool splintered with little warning and Arya reaches for the shelf, fingers only just skimming on the wood. She hung for a dozen heartbeats, fingers holding to the high shelf, _water dancers never fall_ , she told herself but that did little as the shelf gave way.

 

The shelf hitting the ground was louder than her hitting the ground but the clay pot, empty Arya conceded, shattering was the loudest of all. Her ankle stung from her poor landing and her ears rang after her head cracked on the table behind her. She tried to shake her head to get rid of the ringing but it only made her dizzy. _Crawl_ , she told herself but she had to cling to the floor as the earth lurched under her, somehow managing to drag herself away, _hide_. She did not know how long she sat pressed to the corner, her palms dug into her eyes to hold her head still but it was wasn’t long before she heard the metallic clang of armored men heading her way. _Calm as still water_. She sucked in a great breath of air, calming her head some and dragged herself behind the door so she’d not be the first thing they saw, she had no hope to escape with the men just beyond.

 

Two men in Lannister colors, _where I see Lions I only see death_ , pushed through the door and Arya held her breath. _Quiet as a shadow_.

 

“Looks as it did.” The first speaks, beady eyes under his crude helm darting around and his torch lights the room. The second is just behind him, looking bored. They’ve both got spears and chain haulberks but no plates protect their bodies and only one is wearing good leather gloves. Syrio taught her to look, the men have no protection for their legs or faces. _The men can be killed that way_ , Syrio’s voice speaks and Arya feels a chill run up her spine for the dead man’s voice.

 

“Check up the ladder.” The second demands and the first glowers but hands the torch to the second and makes his way to the ladder leading to the second floor. Arya see her chance then and takes it. She scuttles from her spot and pulls Needle from her belt, _quick as a snake_ , and slashes the man across the back of his legs. There’s not much force behind her blow but Needle’s edges are sharp and she feels the catch of skin as the blade draws across. Maybe he shouts but Arya doesn’t hear, she’s dizzy and sick but she grabs her pot and runs. She doesn’t bother putting Needle away as she tears from the house, running towards the tree line with her sword out. _Quick as a snake, swift as a deer, quick as a snake, swift as a deer._

 

It’s dark now but Arya pelts towards the scent of the corpses as she listens to the clatter of her attackers putting chase. She almost doesn’t think to shout but knows she must, _Gendry will come_ , she tells herself. _He promised_.

 

“Help!” she barks in a little harsh cough of a voice, breathless she manages to shout again, “Help. Help!” She passes a house and then another. She counts them, five on the left and six on the right and then comes the row of bodies then a bramble hedge after that is the last thing before the forest.

 

The first man is on her just as she reaches the row of bodies, his spear jabbing past her harmlessly but she half turns to look and stumbles. For the second time that night she hits the earth her and pot of food flies from her hand, thankfully she’s holding Needle too tight to let go.

 

She hears Gendry then, his crashing bull pace so unmistakable she doesn’t need to turn. Gendry is on the man in an instant, hammering him with his sword before the man can spear her; the attack is crude but effective. Gendry is younger but he’s the height of the first man and twice as strong. The man goes down under Gendry and his spear is long forgotten when his face is broken and caved. Gendry hasn’t stopped though, his face twisted in a furious snarl, his sword dropped and his fists pounding against the man. Arya has no time to think on it because the second man is there, running on torn apart legs that slow him down. _Fierce as a wolverine,_ she tells her racing heart, forcing the fear away even as it tears at her chest and tries to dull her mind.

 

The second man does not care for Gendry or his fallen comrade but barrels down on Arya, clearly having caught sight of the person that had slashed his legs and hoping to enact his revenge. He is slowed by pain and he’s clumsy with his spear, which he drives into the ground beside Arya, missing by what feels like half a league. He's stunned for a heartbeat having missed such an easy target and Arya's eyes find his.  _Kill or be killed_. The time is all Arya needs, her hand gripping his spear to pull herself upwards and Needle aims to the sky stabbing the man through his chin and driving up into the soft bones inside his head, not stopping until Needle connects with the top of his skull. There’s hardly any blood when the man drops with dull eyes looking past her unseeingly, no recognition of the death he’d been dealt by a little girl and grey of his brain clinging to Needle as she draws the blade back. _Stick ‘em with the pointy end_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Year 298  
> 3/16 Arya turns 11 (she’s a year younger in cannon but for the sake of her being less underage I’m making her a year older)   
> 4/18 Robert Baratheon arrives in Winter with Royal Party  
> 5/20 Arya, Sansa and Eddard Stark leave for King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. Jon, Benjen and Tyrion leave for the Wall.   
> 6/10 Jon arrives at the Wall (20 days of travel between Winterfell and the Wall @ good pace w/ horses(?)). Jon starts Night Watchman training.  
> 7/23 Nymeria attacks Joff, Nymeria chased off. Lady Killed  
> 8/10 Arya, Sansa and Eddard arrive @ King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. (Three months of travel from Winterfell to King’s Landing @ a slow pace w/ carriages and stoppage)   
> 8/20 Arya starts training with Syrio  
> 9/10 Sam shows up at the Wall and starts training  
> 9/20 Ned meets Gendry   
> 9/22 Hand’s Tourney Day 1   
> 9/23 Hand’s Tourney Day 2  
> 9/25 Ned attacked by Jamie   
> 10/24 Robert Dies. Syrio Dies (2 months of sword training for Arya). Arya escapes to Flea Bottom  
> 11/7 Jon and Sam take Vows (4 months of training for Jon, 2 months for Sam)
> 
> Year 299 
> 
> 1/10 Ned Beheaded. Eddard Dies. Yoren captures Arya.   
> 1/17 Arya, Gendry and Yoren leave for the Wall w/ recruits for the Wall. Arya has been living in Flea Bottom for 2 months.   
> 2/27 King’s Landing to God’s Eye 1 month @ slow pace w/ wagons, prisoner cage and off King’s Road.  
> 2/28 Battle @ the holdfast near God’s Eye. Yoren dead. Lommy stabbed.   
> 3/15 Gendry reveals he knows Arya is a girl. Arya ventures into village near God’s Eye. Gendry does not get captured. Chapter 1 – Arya 1


	2. Gendry 1 - The Woods and The River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya and Gendry escape to the woods. 
> 
> \--

Gendry 1

 

Two mail clad men lay dead and Gendry managed to dully recognize that they wore the colors of the men who had attacked the holdfast. _These men deserved it_ , he decided, _crimson and gold and dead_. He doesn’t know who the men belong to, not a house or a name and thinks that Arya might know, _ladies are taught that sort of thing_. He knows better than to ask, it’s of no concern of his, they had tried to kill Arya and instead they found themselves dead. His eyes search then men again and the man Gendry took looks the worst of it, his head a featureless bloodied pulp that’s been caved and slashed, Gendry knows it was his doing but he can’t seem to remember it. Arya’s man looks like a man, at least, his legs are cut but his face is unharmed save the silver stag sized hole under his jaw, _I don’t think ladies get taught how to do that_. Arya stands beside him, half doubled over with her arms on her knees to keep herself upright. Her breathing hard and fast, chest heaving and Gendry fears she might topple over. His brain muddles when he tries to think on what had happened and there’s a haze he can’t break though. What he can remember is the panicked little cry of Arya that had spurred him from the tree line and the fear that had eaten at his thoughts. He remember watching Arya fall with a spear driven past her side wondering if she’d gone down stabbed like Lommy. Lastly he can remember his sword with it’s silver reflecting the moon’s light as he pulled from the scabbard at his hip with a satisfying 'sichk' of leather on metal. He doesn’t remember going down onto the ground and he doesn’t remember the other man or how Arya had killed him. His vision had blurred red and his heartbeat had drowned out all sound. He can only shake away the last of the red tinge to his vision and breath in deep to calm his rapid heart. He thinks it should make him feel sick but he cannot find anything in him besides satisfaction that he and Arya are alive and not dead.

 

When his head clears enough he thinks to ask Arya, “Are you hurt?” and Arya looks to his face with wide steely eyes and there’s a defiant lift to her chin. _I’m no lady_ , he can still hear her saying to him.

 

She goes to shake her head automatically but her face is pained as she does and she relents, “Some.” the word is clipped and her eyes look to the two men at their feet. “Wasn’t them, I fell from a shelf.” she explains and Gendry wants to ask but presses his mouth shut and nods. There’s a trail of blood running down the back of her neck, staining the neck of her tunic but the wound itself is hidden in her poorly cut hair. The lazy half moon pulls from behind the clouds and casts shadows about the darkness reflecting off the men’s mail and turning the blood into shimmering black pools.

 

“We should go,” he says looking down at himself, there is blood and dirt weighting at his clothing and something sticky is already drying to his fists. He lived in Flea Bottom his whole life, crossing streets of shit and stood before a fire until every inch of him was sooty but he’s never been filthier than he is now and he wonders if Arya feels the same. _She’s a lady, probably had hot baths every day in copper tubs_ Gendry thinks but Arya doesn’t look like much of a lady now, she’s just a tiny, dirty little scrap with matted hair. Gods, even her sword is so covered in blood and gore the sliver of the blade cannot be seen.

 

“Wait.” Arya muttered, her voice is small but it stops him anyways, he’s learned to listen for her “I’ve got a pot of food and the men might have something of value on them.” _Right_ , Gendry thinks, _we came for food not killing_ and goes to help Arya. She’s pulled her face into something of a mask and maybe she’s trying for calm or indifference but Gendry knows better watching the way her hands shake. Her little castle forged blade quivers like a silver willow branch in a gust of wind and it takes her three tries to get it back in her scabbard, the steel catching as she forces it down.

 

The darkness makes it difficult but they find the little pot and Gendry tries to hide his own shock at how well she’d done, the pot is full to the lid and heavy in his hands. He cannot hide the way his stomach grumbles gratefully at the thought of food, sounding loud and jarring in the now quiet night but Arya gives him a tight little smile. They go over the men like Yoren had taught them back at the river _and back when he was alive_ , it feels morbid but he pushes past the feeling because it’ll do him no good. The one man has a few stags and even more copper stars that Gendry quickly pockets as well as a wickedly sharp little knife and a full skin of ale. Arya is twice as efficient and completes her task with skilled hands and blank eyes; it’s hard to remember that she’s just a little girl. The man has no coin but two knives, a skin of ale and a good bit of sourleaf, maybe they can get Lommy to chew some so he’ll quiet some. He looks away as Arya helps herself the leaf, hating the thought that she’s hurt but knows she’ll take none of his sympathies. Arya tosses him a look as if she had heard his thoughts and was less then impressed. If she had managed to read his mind she says nothing and her eyes drift to the hauberk of one of the men.

 

“How much is it worth?” Gendry huffs at her question but his face pulls tight in thought as he looks at the mail before him. Tohbo Mott had taught him to use a critical eye with armor, _you can’t see the soul of a man but it’s reflection shines in his armor_. The work is clean, tight links and twice layered, the armorer had done a fine job but the wearer had taken poor care of it and links are missing causing holes to form. _Those are no battle scars_ , Tohbo Mott would have told him, _learn the difference, boy_. The man had never seen a fight in the mail, _that’s why a green boy and a little girl bettered him,_ Gendry realizes. The second man’s was worse, cheap steel, poor craftsmanship and weather damage leading to a dull rusty appearance. _He was a careless man and carelessness killed him,_ Gendry concludes.  

 

“A dragon,” he answers by wrote pointing to the first man’s mail, “but ten stags to repair it. The other is worthless, nothing more then the steel it’s made from.”

 

“Could we carry it?” a dragon would put them in an inn for a few nights and buy them a hearty meal might even pay someone to look over Lommy’s leg, someone who knows something. 

 

“Not easily.” They already have to carry Lommy and Weasel too because she can’t walk for more than an hour or two. Two stone of chain mail will just weigh the down and even if they could sell it on the road Gendry doubts they’ll get what it’s worth. Arya just nods and Gendry realizes that she trusted his assessment without further question; _she trusts me or at least when it comes to armor_.

 

It seems to take hours to get back to the clearing with Hot Pie and Lommy. Gendry worries that men will come searching and Arya argues, of course she argues because even dizzy and disorientated she still argues. She says the soldiers won’t come looking until after they find the two dead men and Gendry thinks to argue back but she assures him they have time. She might be right, they’ve heard nothing of men it these woods, but she’s not exactly reliable because Arya gets them lost twice, turning in confused circles. _She’s hurt worse than she’ll ever admit_ , Gendry realized before taking the lead without comment and she doesn’t argue this time. He knows he doesn’t have half the directional sense but it’s easy enough to keep the God’s Eye shore on his left shoulder and the forest to his right, weaving about to avoid roots and fallen branches. At one point Arya tumbles over a root and Gendry has to right her with firm hands after a terrifying heartbeat where she couldn’t manage to rise on her own. After that he feels her little hand worrying into the back on his tunic and clinging to him like Weasel often does with Hot Pie.

 

It’s not quiet when they return and for a moment Gendry want’s to tell Arya that she’s wrong and the soldiers did come but the only voice belongs to Lommy. They hear him long before they make it too the clearing and it’s wrong, _very wrong_. When they had left at midday his voice had been biting and clear, quick with his complaints and even quicker with his misplaced advice. Now, now it’s all wrong because Lommy’s words slur together and, loud as his words are, they are barely comprehensible. Gendry goes first into the clearing, holding Arya behind him but Lommy is where he’d been left, plastered at the base of the oak with his ruined leg stretched long. Hot Pie, craven that he is, has hidden himself half in a bush as far from Lommy as the clearing allows and little Weasel has pressed herself into his side. Hot Pie isn’t even armed, the spear they had left him with forgotten and he doesn’t even reach for it as Gendry makes his approach.

 

“He won’t stop.” Hot Pie offered by way of greeting and Gendry watches as Arya rolls her eyes in the direction of Hot Pie. It makes Gendry want to tell Hot Pie off, tell him he should have quieted Lommy or gotten him water but he knows his words are wasted. He and Arya split apart, Arya goes to Lommy trying to assess his leg in the dim light, her hands are light as they skitter up his leg and then going to roll back the fabric of the boy’s breaches. Then she presses the back of her hand well above the wound and Lommy’s response is instant with his barking cries of “Yield, yield, yield!” and Arya has to shush him by pressing her hand to his mouth. Something akin to panic appears in her eyes but she pressed on, offering him the sourleaf but it’s no good. Gendry already knows it won’t work and Arya’s blade-thin frown tells him all he needs to know. Despite Lommy’s treatment of Arya in the past she is surprisingly good with the broken boy, Gendry muses watching as she tries to pour a little of the ale down his throat and doesn’t once complain when he spits back up with a strangled moan. Arya just pats his shrunken cheek and pushes his dampened hair from his face. _A woman’s touch_ , Gendry thinks but he’d never dare mention it, _it’s not a bad thing but she would think it so._

 

There are six oakcakes in the tin and Gendry gives a biscuit each to Hot Pie and Weasel, feeling a little guilty for giving the small child a whole one but she’s so shockingly thin that the guilt evaporates with the wide toothy grin that she thanks him with. Hot Pie’s eyes go wide and he demolishes the food before Gendry can even tell him to eat it slowly but instead of wasting his words Gendry just grunts and rolls his eyes. Done with Lommy for the time Arya stands and moves to the edge of the clearing and Gendry, without even needing to be asked, followed her over. The last four oatcakes in his hand. He forces himself to smile when he passes Arya her share of the meal and for a second he thinks she might argue with him about taking an unequal portion but instead she just returned his weak smile and pulls a wedge of cheese from somewhere on her person. It’s the first real meal they had for days, if not weeks, and Gendry decides it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted even if the oatcakes are harder than rocks and the cheese is chalky. They’ve got dark words to discuss but for a time he lets himself enjoy what little they’ve got and hums in contentment when Arya sits beside him and pressed her shoulder to his side. She’s small and warm and Gendry doesn’t hesitate when he throws his arm over her slim shoulders and holds her to his side. _It’s improper_ , his brain supplied rapidly but it’s too late now to remove and Arya seems content at his side, _it’s like an elder brother looking out for a younger_ and even though it’s a lie he lets himself believe it for a time.

 

“Are we staying here for the night?” Gendry finds himself asking, the silenced shattered and the moment of peace they’d given themselves broken.

 

“It’s too dark to travel,” she begins and then her eyes flicker to Lommy, “and Lommy’s not…” she trails off, bowing her head and running her hands down her tunic as though her palms needed drying, “Lommy’s not well, is all.”

 

“Lommy’s dying. Tell it true.” As if to punctuate his words Lommy moans loud and pitiful from his tree roots and Gendry watches as whatever lie or half-truth Arya had planned dies on her lips.

 

“Yes.” she conceded, “He’s lasted so long I thought he might…” again trailing away, _you thought he’d live, hoped he would_ Gendry thought to himself, finishing the thoughts Arya was unable to “But now he’s refusing drink it surely won’t be long.” she finishes up strong, keeping her eyes downcast and away from Lommy.

 

“Gods.” Gendry hissed on a exhale of breath, he’d been thinking of leaving Lommy, like Cutjack and Tarber had done, thought that if it was just he and Arry they might have made good progress, found a town or maybe gone to the Wall but he hadn’t wanted Lommy to die. Knowing now that Lommy would die made his stomach churn _he’d not give you half the consideration if it were you with a spear in you leg_ Gendry tried to convince himself. Lommy was just a boy of two-and-ten barely older than Arya and an innocent thing even if his morals were questionable. Mostly, though, Gendry thought of the silence the boy would bring, Lommy was always quick with biting words but also happy with chatter. His eyes flicked to Arya, notoriously quiet until worked up when she’d bite back, who stared up at him with a curious look.

 

“What are you thinking?” She murmurs and Gendry wonders if she had even meant to say it with how quiet she had asked the question.

 

_That Lommy is just a boy… That we’re all just children… That I’m just a bastard from Flea Bottom_ … He says none of it and instead, dropping his eyes to the ground, “That we’re fucked.”

 

Morning broke no kinder than the night before had been and in the pale light Gendry thought Arya looked like some kind of demon but thought better than to say it. He knew they had both slept poorly, he’d taken first watch and woken her twice over sounds that had come to close, she’d called him a craven for jumping at shadows but when it came time for her watch she’d done the same. Arya’s eyes were wide, wild and streaked with red and her cheek, hidden under mud and grim, showed the first signs of a large purpling bruise. Gendry thought he must have looked the same because Weasel had given a squeak of terror when she’d first woken and retreated behind Hot Pie, Hot Pie of course had no qualms with telling both he and Arya that they looked the worse of it.

 

“I could make you look worse, Hot Pie.” Arya had spat back and Gendry had thought that Arya could very well have done so after her performance the previous night. Gendry might have found humor in Arya’s threat but the tension of the day wiped any joy from it. Sometime in the night Lommy’s moans had stopped but his breathing persisted and when Arya had examined his wound he’d begun to shout afresh. No means of persuasion had stopped his cries so Arya had held her hand over his mouth and nose till he’d stopped, now he only whimpered and his big-eyed gaze sightless.

 

“We need to be leaving.” Gendry found himself saying but all eyes were focused on Lommy and it’s clear enough that Lommy won’t be accompanying them. Arya has tried twice this morning to get him to drink and both times he’s refused, begging her off with incomprehensible words.

 

“They ain’t after me, I could still yield.” Hot Pie complains and Gendry knows it’s because of his feet, the fat boy had been moaning about them back when they’d been traveling with Yoren. He doesn’t get it, his feet are sore and calloused too but he doesn’t complain and even Arya, who has the worst of it without shoes because they’d grown too small and she’d had to cut them off. Arya never complains and she’s a girl who’s even younger than Hot Pie. “Me and Lommy and Weasel too, we didn’t kill nobody.” Gendry frowns at that, they’d only told Hot Pie about the two men they’d killed after he’d begged for the information and at the time Hot Pie had been half horrified and half in awe. Hot Pie had even said something complementary about Arya and Gendry had given him a heel of stale brown bread for that. 

 

“Aye, and I’m sure you’ll have the time to explain yourself when they bring a sword on your neck.” he spits out, earning a tight nod of approval from Arya. Their meager possessions have been stowed and stashed, they are armed to the teeth but lack pretty much everything else. Arya is tying the last of it to the one pack that had been salvaged from the holdfast and her quick hands find the sleeping skin they’d been using for Lommy’s litter and roll it up along with the rest.

 

Arya huffed and looked over to Hot Pie. “Stay then but we take the food.”

 

Whatever retort Hot Pie might have offered was muffed when Arya launched herself across the clearing and clamped her hand to his mouth. For a moment Gendry did not understand, his mouth pulled in confusion but then he heard it, the baying of hounds. They’d never escape the hounds and Gendry watched the fear bloom in Arya’s eyes and he could not find the bravery in himself to hold back his terror if only for Arya’s sake.

 

“Run?” he asked.

 

“Run.” Arya confirmed with a shaky nod. Hot Pie seems to realize he’s about to be left behind so he scoops down to pick up Weasel and settles her on his back her, wearing her like a cloak. “We make for the river, if we can cross it we can throw off the dogs for a time.” Gendry knows nothing of dogs, the closest he’d ever come to a hunting hound was to fit one for a spiked collar but he hopes that Arya has had closer experience with hounds.

 

There’s something heartbreaking about what Arya does next, hesitating beside Lommy and eyeing the boy with pity but finally she turns to look at him and Hot Pie. “We need a distraction.” She explains and Gendry finds himself nodded, grabbing Hot Pie to turn him away and shove him along. He hears Arya’s quiet, whispered apology and he means to turn away but instead he watches as Arya lifts her foot and brings down her heel on Lommy’s wound. He knows that as long as he lives he’ll never forget the look on her face, _determined and distraught and too old by a decade._

 

Lommy’s howls follow them for a time as they run, loud enough to clear the birds from the trees and drown out the sound of the hounds. Gendry can only hope they kill Lommy quickly because his cries had been so awful and Arya had turned grey with guilt. Arya leads the way and Gendry isn’t sure how she knows the direction to go but it’s not long before he hears the river and thankfully the rushing water covers any trace of Lommy. It’s the river that Arya has tried twice to fish from and while it’s fairly mild at the shores the center rages and plunges over boulders the height of horses. For a time Arya just leads them along the bank, splashing through knee-deep water and casting nervous looks over her shoulder. Arya just pounds on her unprotected feet and thrice she yanks back her foot over something sharp but it doesn’t slow her. Hot Pie can hardly keep pace and Gendry forces himself to stay slow behind him so they do not get too far apart, Weasel stays put with her heels locked under Hot Pie’s armpits and watches the scenery with big eyes. Soon the river opens up and settles to glass, before Gendry knows better Arya is already hip deep in the water. Hot Pie has frozen on the bank, no deeper than his shins. Gendry has accidentally followed her past well past his own knees feeling the water lap at his thighs before he realizes she intends for them to swim.

 

“Come on.” she barks and her voice is filled with a combination of frustration and anxiety. “We’ll swim here and then head back up the bank, they won’t be expecting it.”

 

He sucked in a breath, “Can’t swim, Arry.” And he forces himself to meet her eyes, the grey of unpolished steel looking back at him. 

 

“And you, Hot Pie?” she had looked away from Gendry so fast he had no chance to gauge her thoughts. Hot Pie just shook his head and swallowed a lump in his throat when a hound bayed closer than expected. 

 

“It’s the only way,” she sounds defeated and small, it’s clear that she’d relied upon this crossing to outpace the horses and hounds. As always, Gendry watches as she steels her face and pushes past whatever disappointment she’s come upon, she done the same when they’d found Yoren’s body, _shook herself and moved on_. “Mayhaps it’s not too deep-“

 

“Arry.”

 

“Try Gendry, please.” Arya never said please so he does, he walks as far as he can and finds himself a little over halfway with water kissing at the base of his neck but his next step has him spluttering when the river fills his mouth and nose. He regrets at once not joining in with other children in Flea Bottom when they'd swum by the Mud Gate on hot summers days but Master Mott had always said if he'd come back to the shop smelling of shit he'd toss him back to the streets, it had been an effective enough deterrent at the time. _Dogs or drowning both will spell death_ , he tells himself but even then he takes a step back to the higher ground. Arya has gone back for Hot Pie and Weasel, the little girl protesting when pulled from Hot Pie’s shoulders and refusing to settle as Arya drags her away. Her little arms stretch for Hot Pie and her feet kick Arya’s chest but Arya does not give, paddling on her back so the girl was above the water, it didn’t look so hard. Arya got within a half dozen feet of the other bank before she deposited the little girl in water that come up to her waist, Gendry prayed little Weasel would not think to return to Hot Pie because Arya had already dove back towards him.

 

“Take my hand and don’t struggle.” Gendry watched as Arya extended a hand to Hot Pie and used a voice that might even be considered gentle. Hot Pie took her hand and was half dragged into the deep water, his head dipped below the surface twice but, to Hot Pie’s credit, he remained remarkably calm as Arya pulled him with powerful kicks. While Hot Pie was twice as wide as Arya he was not so much taller and floated like wood but Gendry suspected she’d not be able to drag him half as well as she’d done Hot Pie. Hot Pie safely standing Gendry surged forward as Arya turned back for him.

 

His head was immediately submerged, the water calm and quiet around him leaving him ample opportunity to listen to the pounding in his chest, his eyes opened to the murky deep. He looked to the light filtering above him and he reaches for it but is met only by cool liquid and when he tries to find footing his boots slide away under him. He had hoped not to panic but he sees no other alternative, feeling the water press around him and he thinking of the pack at his back pulling him down. His chest burns and he hadn’t thought to take a deep breath before trying to drown himself. An arm shoots down and a skinny hand finds the front of his tunic, knuckles white and purple in front of his face. With the weightlessness of water Arya drags up him up and his head breaks the surface with a great gasping breath.

 

She’s saying something but he can’t hear it and reaches out to grab her shoulder but when he does Arya sinks below the surface and he can’t drag her up without sinking himself. A foot finds his guts and the breath he’d only just caught is knocked out of him and he releases his hold of Arya, _a warning_ , he realizes as Arya’s head pops up from the water. Her hair is pasted to her scalp and her face is cleaner than he’s seen it be in weeks.

 

“I’ll not yet you drown, stupid, but you can’t drown me neither.” she spits up water and words in the same breath. She doesn’t wait for him to nod, just reaches out and tugs the fabric at his shoulder. He kicks out experimentally and with Arya holding him he doesn’t sink this time. Half a dozen more kicks and Arya releases her hold and before the panic can kick in his feet brush the stones of the riverbed. He stands and his pack is twice as heavy and his clothing lay flat to his body. Arya was beside him looks much like one to the river-rats around King's Landing, all skinny sleek and soaking wet, but she shakes the water free from her hair like a dog. Hot Pie was fighting his own battle to keep the sodden clothing on little Weasel who was pulling at the base of her dress but Arya intervened and hoisted the girl onto Hot Pie’s back where she settled with her hand’s clinging around Hot Pie’s neck. While Hot Pie might have been sullen about the weight put on his back he gave Arya a grateful look anyhow.

 

Hours later when the sun had begun to set and even Arya could walk no more they’d settled into a thicket of trees. They had run until their clothes had dried to their skin and then walked under the cover of trees for a while more, Arya had insisted they weave a confusing trail for the dogs. They’d not heard any hounds since the river and they’d crossed three smaller streams since then but still Arya climbed a tree and looked for their pursuers. They made no fire and ate soaked oats and soaked beans, a tasteless cold meal that had been messily scooped by hand into their eager mouths. Again, Gendry would take first watch so he and Arya shared the one sleeping roll while Hot Pie and Weasel took the other. When he’d sat down Arya had come beside him, slumping her head into his lap before long. With a smile he tugged a matted length of her hair and she’d looked up at him with an unheated glare.

 

“I’ll need to cut it soon.” Arya yawned and drifted her eyes closed but still awake. Gendry wove his hands down into the base of her skull finding more hair knotted together, her hair had grown some since leaving King’s Landing but certainly not to the length of a lady's. “And I’m sorry for taking you across that river and nearly drowning you.” She had squinted one grey eye open to look up at his face, searching for forgiveness or something else he wasn’t sure.

 

She needn’t have apologized, he’d not enjoyed his swim but he hadn’t blamed her for taking them across the river, so he chucked at the thought and twisted another finger around a link of hair. “Go to sleep, m’lady.” And he thought she might have listened because her breathing slowed and her face smoothed out.

 

“I’ll teach you to swim, swear it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same timeline as the previous chapter. We'll get moving shortly. 
> 
> Year 298  
> 3/16 Arya turns 11 (she’s a year younger in cannon but for the sake of her being less underage I’m making her a year older)  
> 4/18 Robert Baratheon arrives in Winter with Royal Party  
> 5/20 Arya, Sansa and Eddard Stark leave for King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. Jon, Benjen and Tyrion leave for the Wall.  
> 6/10 Jon arrives at the Wall (20 days of travel between Winterfell and the Wall @ good pace w/ horses(?)). Jon starts Night Watchman training.  
> 7/23 Nymeria attacks Joff, Nymeria chased off. Lady Killed  
> 8/10 Arya, Sansa and Eddard arrive @ King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. (Three months of travel from Winterfell to King’s Landing @ a slow pace w/ carriages and stoppage)  
> 8/20 Arya starts training with Syrio  
> 9/10 Sam shows up at the Wall and starts training  
> 9/20 Ned meets Gendry  
> 9/22 Hand’s Tourney Day 1  
> 9/23 Hand’s Tourney Day 2  
> 9/25 Ned attacked by Jamie  
> 10/24 Robert Dies. Syrio Dies (2 months of sword training for Arya). Arya escapes to Flea Bottom  
> 11/7 Jon and Sam take Vows (4 months of training for Jon, 2 months for Sam)
> 
> Year 299 
> 
> 1/10 Ned Beheaded. Eddard Dies. Yoren captures Arya.  
> 1/17 Arya, Gendry and Yoren leave for the Wall w/ recruits for the Wall. Arya has been living in Flea Bottom for 2 months.  
> 2/27 King’s Landing to God’s Eye 1 month @ slow pace w/ wagons, prisoner cage and off King’s Road.  
> 2/28 Battle @ the holdfast near God’s Eye. Yoren dead. Lommy stabbed.  
> 3/15 Gendry reveals he knows Arya is a girl. Arya ventures into village near God’s Eye. Gendry does not get captured. Chapter 1 – Arya 1.  
> 3/16 Arya turns 12  
> 3/16 Chapter 2 – Gendry 1 The Woods and the River
> 
>  
> 
> At some point I'll draw lines on a map to show you where they've been going.


	3. Arya II - The Riverlands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her mother had spoken of a kind climate and kinder people, a home she'd wished her children to visit. Arya never agreed with her mother on much. 
> 
> or 
> 
> I drew some lines on a map and realized I'd have to write a chapter that correlated with it. 
> 
> (https://honestlackey.deviantart.com/art/Screen-Shot-2017-10-24-at-1-21-04-PM-711637853?ga_submit_new=10%3A1508952587)

Arya II – The Riverlands

 

She likes waking from her wolf dreams, in her dreams she is fat and full having feasted on man and animal alike. She knows well enough that the fullness isn't real but the feeling doesn’t fade until past midday, giving her a much needed respite from the gnawing hunger pains. The dreams had begun two weeks prior when the supplies had run out and while Gendry and Hot Pie had rose hungry she had awoken with a belly full of dream meat. She ran in the wolf’s body as head of the pack, twice the size of a regular wolf and twice as fierce. Her teeth sent men and horse running but the two-dozen wolves at her back would run them down. They howled and ran and tore apart Riverlands, Arya liked to imagine that Gendry, Hot Pie and Weasel were wolves too and that the four of them killed men and ate their meat. Last night they’d eaten lion men, six of them with three fat horses, putting them to chase before they'd had a chance to settle in for the night. The chase was short, the men no match for wolves, and soon the white tunics were as crimson as the Lannister cloaks wore. She would have stayed in the dream longer but Gendry had woken her for her sit at watch. When the wolves howled in the distance she had smiled and not been afraid.

 In the daylight she wasn’t a wolf, she didn’t know what animal she was, maybe a mouse for how they scurried about to avoid farmhouses and travelers or perhaps a horse because she did nothing but walk day in and day out. In the days following being chased by the hounds they’d walked from dawn to past dark. At first she hadn’t even realized they’d been pointed south until they’d come upon the holdfast. With nowhere else they had slept in the passageway below the barn for the night, jumping each time the burned wood creaked above them but it had been a warmer sleep than any in the woods. After paying respects to Yoren in his shallow grave they left down the river looking for a crossing but found none that did not have guards. Arya had spent a day trying to teach Gendry to swim but in the end Gendry had chopped away at a rotten wooden dock and they had used it as a raft to cross. Weasel, it turned out, had been taught to swim sometime in her short life and had frolicked about in the water naked as her name day. Hot Pie had been taught to float, which he was a natural at, but Gendry had flounder and tried to drown Arya twice when he’d found himself beyond his height.

 Robbers had tried to take them on the western shore of the God’s Eye but it was just a man and his young son, scared and armed only with knives so Arya and Gendry had pulled swords and robbed them back; they’d not even tried to fight when Gendry demanded for their supplies in his deep voice. _They deserved it_ , Arya had justified, _if they hadn’t tried to rob us first they’d still have their coin and food_. Still, it had been a scare enough to push them from the roads around the lake and back into the farmlands. If they could still be called farmlands, that was, half the fields they had crossed had been burned and the other half had been abandoned and left to rot. Arya hadn’t minded the long beans even if they were slightly slimy and smelled poorly, they’d been three days without food so Gendry and Hot Pie hadn’t minded either and Weasel ate anything that was given to her. Meat was harder to come by because Arya was no great hunter and didn’t have the right tools anyways but whatever she caught they would eat. It meant they had eaten a lot of strange things that Arya would never had thought as food should she have still lived in a castle. Half a dozen pink rabbit kits had been found in a shallow warren so she crushed the little skulls and Hot Pie stewed them with beans, a turtle once had been found when crossing a stream and they’d spent the better part of an afternoon trying to crack it’s shell and even a cat that Arya had caught stalking the rows of a rotten crop field. Arya was good at catching cats so it had been easy enough but she hadn’t known how to kill it so she’d brought it back to Gendry who had done the deed for her, _and maybe you felt bad for the little animal too_ she thought but the meat had been enough for two meals. This morning, however, they had nothing to break their fasts and if they could not find anything throughout the day they would have nothing to eat that night. Hot Pie was awake and fretting over Weasel like a worried hen because she was hungry she’d decided to eat mud and Hot Pie was trying to wipe away the evidence with the sleeve of his shirt. Gendry was sharpening his sword with a single-minded intensity, the sword hadn’t needed the attention but if it kept him from his hungry thoughts then Arya wouldn’t tell him otherwise.

 “Where to, Arry?” Gendry always made sure to call her Arry around Hot Pie but in private liked to call her Arya or sometimes he’d call her m’lady when she'd done something particularly unladylike. Dhe’d thump him in the arm for good measure even if that only made him laugh.

 “North again.” She offered with a deliberately indifferent shrug of her shoulders. The truth was she didn’t know where they were heading; she wanted for Winterfell but had no clue how to make it there without the Kingsroad. She wondered if Robb was still in the riverlands and if he’d taken Riverrun but she’d heard no news since the Kingsroad and it wasn’t like she knew how to get to Riverrun either. Her mother had taken Robb and Sansa to Riverrun once but Arya had been just a babe then so had not gone along. Her septas teaching had done her little good because although she'd been taught the name of every lord and every house in the north but when her mother had insisted she learn the names of the river lords too she’d snuck away to play monsters-and-maidens with Bran and Jon. _Sansa would have known_ she thought bitterly _but Sansa would have died at the holdfast or a dozen other times_ but those thoughts helped her little _._ Knowing the names of lords was useless without a map to show her the houses. In her father's solar in Winterfell there had been a great map carved from wood and Jon had shown her it a dozen or more times but she’d never been interested in Westeros and instead looked to Essos trailing her fingers across the Dothraki Sea and imagining herself horseback, the grass seas of Essos were as far away as Winterfell felt to her now. Gendry claimed to have drawn out a map of Westeros on the breastplate of a man’s armor but when he’d tried to draw it in the dirt it had looked little more than squiggles and Hot Pie had said he could probably bake bread in the shape of Westeros. She’d called Gendry stupid and laughed at Hot Pie until her sides ached and it went a ways to improve her mood.

 “North again.” Gendry agrees easily replacing the sword in his scabbard and tying the whole thing around his waist. _He looked like a warrior_ , Arya thought due to his size and muscle, _but he’s a smith not a knight_. Still, his size could be used as a deterrent and it was good because few took Arya seriously without the broad smith at her back.

 At the first stream they drank their share and after Gendry filled the two empty ale skins and replaced them in the pack while Arya found herself knee deep in the river with her spear hoping that she might come upon a fish or even a turtle. She had little luck with fish but she remember Old Nan’s tales about the crannogmen catching fish with pronged spears and in the Neck, mayhaps she could find Greywater Watch because her father had always spoken highly of his bannerman, Howland Reed, but it was said the castle moved and could not be found. _I’d catch fish if I had a pronged spear_ , she thought and rejoined the rest on the shore, _if I caught fish then we could feast_. It seemed the meal she’d taken in her dream had worn off and now the hunger clawed at her stomach leaving her irritable. Instead of sniping at Hot Pie, as she was prone to do, she’d plucked a smooth stone from the bank and popped it in her mouth to suck on. It was another trick from Kruz the poacher to stave off hunger but it felt rather silly to suck on a rock so she spat it out.

 “We should check the farmhouse,” Arya mused, pointing ahead at the grey crops and the little black roof farmhouse that sat beyond it, “Just you and I.” she amended as her head turned to watch Hot Pie tumble over the uneven ground.

 Gendry sighed, “Are you sure?”

 “As sure as I am hungry.” But Gendry did not give her the smile she’d been expecting and instead his face pulled into a harsh frown.

 “There could be men, Arya.”

 “And we have swords.” she huffed, she thought she’d done well enough at the in the village but ever since Gendry had denied her attemps to check the farms and small keeps they passed. Even though she’d been set upon by the two men in the end the men had been beaten and killed. “We need the food.”

 “We need not to die, especially you.” And the harsh laugh that bubbles from her mouth is wholly unexpected. _He just needs me alive because he’d die otherwise_ , she thinks bitterly foul with her hungry thoughts.

 “I said you could come this time, is that not good enough?”

 “Not by half, m’lady.” Gendry crows and Arya steps forward to shove him back as she normally does but something in his face stops her, it’s the look Jon had always given her. That look of fond exasperation but Gendry could not be Jon. Jon had known her for a lifetime and loved her despite her unladylike tendencies. Gendry had only known her four turns of the moon, he should not have cared for her yet. _I should not care for him yet either but I do_ , her mind supplied her,  _but it is only because I cannot survive on my own._ Jon was her family and her pack; Jon loved her as much as father had. Only family could be her pack and no one would ever love her like Jon did and father had.

 “Half is enough.” She decided to change the subject; nothing good would come of Gendry and his stupid looks, “Give the pack to Hot Pie and tell him we’ll meet him back with supper.” He looked like he wanted to argue but she was already pulling herself into the branches of the nearest tree and she refused to let herself be distracted.

 It was an easy tree to climb with its thick strong branches that did not sway under her weight, and the familiar pull of her muscles calmed her. All too soon she could climb no higher and with one hand resting on the tree’s trunk she stood up tall as she could on the branch. At her back tall trees blocked the view of the God’s Eye and at her front the farmlands laid out for miles a patchwork of burnt black and rot grey. _The causalities of war are not just knights and soldiers_ , she thought looking out further, _this is starving land now._ Smoke mottled the horizon and if she squinted she could make out the reds and orange of flames, she thought it likely to be a crop but she could not be sure it was not a town. The fires in the distance didn’t matter much, at the very least they were too far for her concern and she was more focused on the farmhouse in front of her. It was made up of six or seven hides of land with a house and lean-to barn sitting in the center, at the back stood a small orchard of a dozen trees. There was no smoke from the house and no movement in the barn and she decided it safe to approach. Descending was the best bit and she hopped from one branch to the next and kept her hands out for balance. The last branch was four foot over Gendry’s head so she’d dropped the last of it onto his back; her hands found his shoulders and her feet dug into the small of his back. She doesn’t think _light as a feather_ but instead her head supplies her with _heavy as an anvil_. Predictably he swung around with a strangled yelp and she let herself be thrown off, rolling out and for a moment letting herself lay on her back and gaze up into the trees branches.

 Her view was obstructed when Gendry came to stand over her and, at last, he wore a smile on his face and his great bull helm on his head. “Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked dryly with a chuckle rumbling the sound.

 “Yes.” She answered truthfully and gave him a smile that was all teeth. He offered his arm down and she’d let herself be pulled up by his roughly calloused hand.

 “Hot Pie isn’t happy.” Gendry informed her once they’d gotten a dozen feet onto the crop field.

 “Is he ever happy?” but that wasn’t the truth, Hot Pie had been downright gleeful with food in his belly. He had a rich laugh and told dirty jokes he’d learned from the Street of Flour, even the ones he hadn’t understood the meaning behind. Gendry would turn red when Arya asked him to explain the japes because he was older and understood them but he’d refused until she’d pulled her knife as a threat. She didn’t think them so funny even upon Gendry’s explanation, well, maybe the one about the fat priest.

 Gendry shrugged his response, dipping one broad shoulder and raising his eyes to the sky. “Looks of rain.”

 She followed his gaze to the clouded sky; one half bright blue and sunlit while the other half wore a blanket of darkened grey. “Good.” She decided, “there are fires to the northwest, hopefully the rain will put them down.” She explained and Gendry took it in with a thoughtful expression. They walked in silence after that and the dead crop rose up around them taller than Gendry by two feet. She was hopeful that some of the crop would be salvageable so far she’d found nothing, grains falling from the husks like little black beads. An irrigation ditch cuts between two fields but no water runs through it only mud. With bare feet she has no purchase in the mud and she slides down the bank. The mud feels nice between her toes but soon it rises past her knees and becomes an annoyance, caking an inch thick to her legs. Gendry fairs no better even if the mud is only up to his shins and barely comes above his proper leather boots.

 “Can we not go anywhere without getting filthy?” Gendry muttered, drawing his boot back and being met with nothing but mud. She’d giggled at that but clamped her hand to her mouth immediately.

 “You think this filthy?” she baited, fighting to reclaim her foot as the mud suctioned around it but keeping her face smooth, “I crawled from the sewers of the Red Keep, stunk something fierce. This mud isn’t half as bad.” She leered and was met by a wicked smile on Gendry’s face. His hands catch her before she can tell him off and his thumb and first finger wrap around her biceps and then some. He lifts and she kicks him, sending her muddy foot to the center of his chest and leaving a perfect impression. Gendry outright laughs, deeper than any boy had right to be, and tosses her into the crop on the other side of the ditch. _Crude but effective_ , Arya mused pulling herself to standing and looking down at Gendry still in the ditch, _it seems to be his way._ Even though he’s still laughing Arya offers him her hand but he doesn’t take it and instead heaves himself up and leavers onto the solid ground.

 “Gods, you’re stubborn!” and Gendry just rolls onto his back and laughs harder so she kicks him, _it seems to be my way_. It’s fun and games until they reach the house; Gendry pushes her into a wheat bushel. So she retaliates by tripping him. So Gendry scoops mud from his boots and throws it at the back of her neck. So Arya scrapes the mud from her neck and smears it across Gendry’s eye and cheek. Too soon their fun has to end as they reach the end of the rotted wheat fields but neither dare to move from the safety of the crop. It's a good sized farmhouse with cheery stone walls and a cleanly thatched roof with a chimney that juts out at the rear. To the farmhouses left is a lean-to barn with open faced horse stalls and an empty fenced corner than Arya thinks might have held pigs. It looks abandoned but she knows well enough that looks are deceiving.

“I'll go first then?” she offers

 As she runs her hand finds Needle’s hilt ready to draw it at any movement, _swift as a deer_. _Quiet as a shadow_ , she reminds herself before slowing her approach and at the door she does not burst through but rather presses herself to the wall and waits. The stone warm from the heat of the day and she allows herself to melt against it. She breathes, listens and when nothing in heard from within beckons Gendry forward from his place within the wheat. He's long strides cover the distance and his eyes never leave hers. He stands beside her and his mouth forms the silence word _“Together?”_ and Arya nods. Her hand is on Needle and Gendry's hand is on his own sword.

 The house reeks of hot death and three three bodies lay stretched long across the floor. A man, a woman and a child small enough to be Weasel all with sword opened bellies and crushed skulls. Gendry heaves and staggers back out the door but Arya finds herself lifting her tunic to her nose to filter the stench but does not turn. _Fear cuts deeper than swords_ , Syrio reminds her inside her head and in her own voice thinks _dead men can’t hurt you_. She turns and looks at Gendry in the doorway, his helm in his arms and his face grey as the clouds in the sky.

 “Check the orchards at the back.” she offers, feeling poorly herself but not wanting Gendry to see and Gendry agrees silently with a shaky little nod. Alone now she presses the fabric of her tunic tighter to her nose and forces herself forwards. Wandered deeper into the little farmhouse with hesitant steps _the dead can't hurt you, fear cuts deeper than swords_. It was a good sized house, the type a man could be proud of, thick walls, small high windows and a hearth that would keep a northman warn through winter let alone a riverlander. She did not let herself linger over the bodies, not the man with a rusted axe as his only weapon nor the woman who’s arms stretched but never wrapped around her little child and she tries to avert her eyes from the little child but finds she cannot. A tiny thing that could not have been older then Weasel with a perfect little toy knight held firm in his hand, the type of toy that Rickon had loved to destroy and Bran had loved to pose on imaginary battlefields. Jon had brought her a little toy knight once, painted and pretty, but Sansa had caught her playing with it and teased her so she'd thrown it at her stupid sister's head and the knight had been confiscated. _I am sorry little knight_ , she thought to the boy squatting down and brushing a finger across his stiff cheek and she thought on Rickon and Bran too and prayed they were safe and warm in Winterfell.

 She did not cry and at this point she suspected she could not cry any more, the last time had been the first night on the road leaving King's Landing and she'd cried for her father but since then no tears had came. She busied herself with searching the house forcing herself to step over the bodies. Jars of preserved vegetables and fruits lay in shattered pots on the floors and the sticky contents collected thick black flies, two meat hooks sat over the hearth empty and a long box held nothing but flour. She wondered what Hot Pie needed to make bread and found an empty tin and filled it with as much flour as she could and grinned despite herself, _maybe Hot Pie really could bake them a bread of Westeros_. Beyond the flour there was not much else, just a little barley that might bulk of a soup and some hard tack crackers. She turned her eyes to other things, Gendry had a pair of fine leather boots and even Hot Pie had a pair low cut leather shoes but neither Weasel or her had anything. She found something for Weasel easily enough a good pair of deerskin slippers and a pair of knitted socks both had clearly belonged to the young boy. Her father had hated thieves and Arya wondered if her father would hate her for becoming a thief even if the family had no need for their possessions any longer. A pair of cleanly folded hose distracted her and they too would go to Weasel, the little girl had been running about in nothing but a smock. In a washers basket she found a cloak that would fit Gendry well enough, even though it was likely too small, and she stood to shake it out. A scroll of paper fell from it's folds and rolled across the floor. Curious as always she rests Gendry's new cloak on the corner of the sleeping pallet and reaches for the note.

 She had been taught her letters as a child, long nasty lessons with Maester Luwin in his cluttered turret. She always wished to read from books that told tales of Queen Nymeria but instead he'd forced her to stumble over boring history of the North but had always cut her off before the battles had gotten interesting. Still, she had been well taught and the letters on the note came easily to her.

  


“ _Raydunn Wisse_

_to be delivered to Atranta House of Vance_

_Father_

_They have assigned scribes to all of us with family still on the land as they say it is no longer safe to stay in the riverlands. The Lord of Riverrun, Edmure of House Tully has opened his gates to give shelter and I ask that you take this message to heart and ride for Riverrun. You must leave the farm, Father, I will beg if I must. Please think of Mother and little Ryver, I cannot be there to protect the family._

_I am well. The North broke the siege of Riverrun as I am sure you have heard and the young winter lord has been named King of the Trident and King of the North. I intend to fight for him when he moves south, he will take all good men and has promised vengeance for all that have been wronged in the riverlands._

_Raymure Wisse”_

 

 For a long time she could not think and even less so breath. Her heart felt as if it had cracked and been built again all at once. Sorrow for the son that would never see his family again; joy for Robb who was King of the North and King of the Trident all at once. Sorrow for the man that fought at her brother's side but had lost his own little brother. Arya had lost her father and she knew that pain, she could not wish it on this man who had lost a father and more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Year 298  
> 3/16 Arya turns 11 (she’s a year younger in cannon but for the sake of her being less underage I’m making her older)  
> 4/18 Robert Baratheon arrives in Winter with Royal Party  
> 5/20 Arya, Sansa and Eddard Stark leave for King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. Jon, Benjen and Tyrion leave for the Wall.  
> 6/10 Jon arrives at the Wall (20 days of travel between Winterfell and the Wall @ good pace w/ horses(?)). Jon starts Night Watchman training.  
> 7/23 Nymeria attacks Joff, Nymeria chased off. Lady Killed  
> 8/10 Arya, Sansa and Eddard arrive @ King’s Landing w/ Royal Party. (Three months of travel from Winterfell to King’s Landing @ a slow pace w/ carriages and stoppage)  
> 8/20 Arya starts training with Syrio  
> 9/10 Sam shows up at the Wall and starts training  
> 9/20 Ned meets Gendry  
> 9/22 Hand’s Tourney Day 1  
> 9/23 Hand’s Tourney Day 2  
> 9/25 Ned attacked by Jamie  
> 10/24 Robert Dies. Syrio Dies (2 months of sword training for Arya). Arya escapes to Flea Bottom  
> 11/7 Jon and Sam take Vows (4 months of training for Jon, 2 months for Sam)
> 
> Year 299 
> 
> 1/10 Ned Beheaded. Eddard Dies. Yoren captures Arya.  
> 1/17 Arya, Gendry and Yoren leave for the Wall w/ recruits for the Wall. Arya has been living in Flea Bottom for 2 months.  
> 2/27 King’s Landing to God’s Eye 1 month @ slow pace w/ wagons, prisoner cage and off King’s Road.  
> 2/28 Battle @ the holdfast near God’s Eye. Yoren dead. Lommy stabbed.  
> 3/15 Gendry reveals he knows Arya is a girl. Arya ventures into village near God’s Eye. Gendry does not get captured. Chapter 1 – Arya 1.  
> 3/15 Chapter 2 – Gendry 1 POV  
> 3/16 Arya turns 12  
> 3/21 The Great Ranging. Jon beyond the Wall.  
> 3/20 Cross the God’s Eye Fork  
> 3/23 Robbers attack on the western shore of the God’s Eye, decision made to leave the God’s Eye  
> 3/25 Theon arrives in Pyke (Riverrun to Pyke 1 month @ slow pace with delays for a ship)  
> 4/7 Find the Farmhouse (Travel from the villiage to the farmhouse 3 weeks @ slow pace w/o map) Arya II – The Riverlands.


End file.
